Greg,

So I took a look at the pictures you mentioned and what you're suggesting isn't far from my first efforts which I referred to as staggering the fingers a bit. I do hold the stick pretty close to vertical (trying to go by the book) , so no change was required there. I find that changing the angle of my hand does help a little.

Yet, I do notice that, with one finger staggered slightly, that the pitch of the string it strikes is sometimes off because the finger gets so close to the previous fret. This effect is what initially concerned me. It leaves the note a little flat/sour/choked off.

Now, I have been playing the stings with a moderate to light touch. Tonight I experimented with punching the strings a bit harder and noticed that the increase in force seemed to help avoid the flat/sour/choked off sound even when the finger is close to the previous fret.

Perhaps I've been a bit too gentle with my strings. Does this make sense?

Thanks again,

-m.

Hey Greg,

Back on topic here...

Try Gary Willis's book on Linear Harmoney. I found his approach to walking bass lines to be quite differant than the norm...

You might like it.

Hi Matthew,

Sorry to not have responded to this earlier. At the higher frets sometimes you do have to switch to a double-stop. Do what's most comfortable for you. Where you can use both fingers, then do, as you'll want both capabilities at different points.

Since the fret spacing is different at different point son the instrument, sometimes things do have to be done differently. But striving for consistent technique wherever possible is a good idea. Often, changing the hand angle just a little bit is what makes this possible.

here's an example of where it would really be useful to have the skill to do it with both fingers:

Play a minor triad/5 shape:



then pull off to the relative major/3 shape



If you're using the double-stop for the two lowest notes, this isn't possible. But it's pretty easy with the 2nd finger playing the middle note.

Don't forget that you can always move things down from those high frets to lower ones (if you still have string left that is). just count down 5 frets and move up one string.

As a last piece of advice, the hand movement along the string instead of "typing" motion makes all of this easier. In this exercise you are effectively making lots of little position shifts. If you have to make two motions, first shifting the hand and then tapping down, it will be unintentionally staccato. So practice the little hand shifts that you see in this video, which uses exercises on pages 2-1 and 2-2:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVNNUHKZWLw[/youtube]

Hope that helps.

Hey Greg,

Thanks so much for the thoughtful and detailed answer. I appreciate your time and gerenosity. What you've suggested is definitely helpful.

As for my playing, it's a work in progress. Fortunately there is progress involved.

Happy Sunday!


-m.

Hi Matthew,

Happy to (hopefully) help.

The skype lessons are extremely reasonable, btw...